


Forgotten

by ClockworkDinosaur (orphan_account)



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Isolation, Loneliness, Short, prompted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 06:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6843610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ClockworkDinosaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After twenty-seven thousand three hundred and seventy-three days, he's finally found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> An older fic that I was prompted to write, originally posted on Tumblr by me.

Hatchworth had finally lost track of the days. It was relieving in a way, not keeping up with the tally-marks that noted each day that passed since he was put in the vault due to his faulty core.

Twenty-seven thousand, three hundred and seventy lines marked the walls, neat and ordered. There wasn’t space to add any more anyway, even if he could. He had run out of chalk to keep up with the passing time.

Hatchy looked up to the cloud of Blue Matter radiation that always hovered in the small vault, obscuring the pipes and vents that used to circulate air in the cramped space, but had stopped working ten thousand and ninety tally-marks ago. He didn’t need the ventilation, but he missed the whirring and clanking pipes. The clouds swirled lazily around.

Not for the first time, Hatchworth was upset with himself for not remembering exactly how many days were in one year. He knew decades had passed, but not how many, exactly. He was also upset with himself for wearing out his voice-box eighteen thousand tally-marks ago from singing. He was always bored, but for the first few years at least he could entertain himself by singing.

He was often upset, when he wasn’t bored or afraid. Hatchworth frowned as best as he could with his broken face plate, the parts removed in the last days of the Walter Workers attempting to fix his unstable core.

They didn’t bother to replace those when they put him in the vault.

The familiar feeling of loneliness wrapped itself around his core, squeezing him until he clenched his fists and pressed them against his eyes. No tears would come he knew, but he still hated the almost-crying feeling. The feeling usually faded quickly though.

This time, however, it didn’t. His core felt more and more constricted, until he had to move his hands and look at the core in confusion.

The normal billowing leak of Blue Matter was subsiding from his quickly darkening core.

His core, after twenty-seven thousand three hundred and seventy days, was finally winking out.

As he leaned back against the metal wall and the space around him dimmed in the fading glow, he wondered if anyone would even find his rusted hull, if anyone even bothered looking for him after the first decade or two. He wondered if anyone would be sad to find him, still and lifeless.

Dying with the knowledge he was completely forgotten was exactly how Hatchworth assumed he would go.

Twenty-seven thousand three hundred and seventy-three days later, the vault opened again.


End file.
